I know that by Monday, I’ll have a couple of posts about John the Baptist. By Monday, I’ll have finished thinking about John, sitting in jail. I’ll be done thinking through what it would be like to have merely told the truth, God’s truth, about Herod and his brother’s wife-stealing. And then to be locked up.

I’ll have considered what it would mean to John that he knew he was a prophet in the tradition of the great prophets, that he was going out in the name of God. “Brood of vipers” he said, winning no friends yet getting people to think about what they were doing.

His message wasn’t complicated: “If you have two tunics and someone doesn’t have any, the fact that on average, you each have one is irrelevant. If the other guy is cold.” Or he said, “If you have food and someone doesn’t, share. Duh.” Or he said to the militia, “Just because you can lie and abuse your power doesn’t mean you should. Or even may.”

John told truth and got locked up. And by Monday I’ll better understand why he sent a couple of his disciples, his apprentices, the guys who were bringing food to him in jail, why he sent them to Jesus and said “Are you the one or should we look for someone else?”

By Monday, I’ll better understand what it’s like to pour your life into doing what you are called by God to do and be in jail and wondering about the one you thought you were pointing to. After all, if I’m in the kings’s jail and the man who would be king is still in the sticks on the other end of the country . . .

But I’ll understand by Monday. Because I must preach it on Sunday.